As I’m preparing to launch Square 1 – a new 90-day transformational program that helps people move from Deconstruction to Reconstruction – I feel the need to clarify a few things about “Reconstruction.” Specifically, the notion that “Reconstruction” of our faith involves telling people what to believe.

For the record: Reconstruction has nothing to do with Re-Indoctrination.

Think about it: You’ve just spent months, perhaps years, re-thinking and deconstructing your Christian faith; questioning the doctrines your pastors and parents and Bible teachers handed to you – relentlessly abandoning the toxic status quo of American Christianity – only to roll over and allow someone to tell you what to believe about Hell, or the Bible, or Salvation, etc.

Really?

I think not.

Reconstruction is not about telling people what to think. It’s about helping people re-learn how to think for themselves.

Here’s the deal: If you’ve gone through a long and painful process of deconstruction, the last thing you need to do is to jump right back into another situation where some spiritual guru spoon feeds you another set of doctrines.

That’s insane.

To be clear, actual Reconstruction involves the following:

*Learning to forgive those who have hurt us

*Accepting our own spiritual responsibility for growth and connection

*Developing new spiritual practices to replace the toxic systems we abandoned

*Re-wiring our brains to create new thought patterns that lead us to life, joy and love

*Re-connecting ourselves with the Divine to experience God rather than merely talk about God/Theology

The one thing Reconstruction absolutely does NOT involve is enslaving ourselves to another spiritual leader or human authority who leads us around by the hand as if we were children who cannot think for ourselves.

Please understand: This 90 Day Square 1 program will help people to develop new spiritual disciplines and practices that lead them to experience real freedom from their old, toxic Christianity and equip them to discover and experience Christ directly – without any need to depend upon me, or anyone else, for their ongoing spiritual development.

We will spend 13 weeks together exploring the essential elements of Reconstruction, develop new habits that lead us to greater connection with the Divine, release ourselves from every entanglement that prevents us from fully escaping religious control systems, retrain our brains to focus on the positive aspects of faith, establish new patterns that replace old ways of thinking, and above all – learn to think for ourselves.

So, fair warning: Anyone who tries to tell you that spiritual Reconstruction involves submitting yourselves to another spiritual guru is not concerned about your best interests. They want to re-enslave you to yet another toxic religious system where you are under control and easily manipulated.

Don’t do it!

The truth is, this is why Reconstruction as I’m describing it is so essential. Because without recognizing our predisposition to operate within religious systems that control us, we will easily fall right back into those old patterns and grooves that are still active in our brains.

We need to not only re-think our theology, but also completely disconnect from that old way of thinking – a way of thinking and being that many of us have spent years reinforcing over and over again.

That pattern in itself is something that needs to be broken and replaced with new patterns that lead us to experience actual freedom and real life-giving spirituality that is totally free from Top-Down control.

Hopefully this clears up any confusion on the matter. Reconstruction is not about Re-Indoctrination. It’s about learning to set ourselves free from toxic religion so we can continue to experience and enjoy that freedom without taking any other yoke upon ourselves.

If you’d like to un-learn these old patterns and really move into the complete freedom of Reconstruction, I invite you to join me at Square 1 on Sept. 30. We have 10 seats still available.

Keith Giles was formerly a licensed and ordained minister who walked away from organized church 11 years ago, to start a home fellowship that gave away 100% of the offering to the poor in the community. Today, He and his wife live in Meridian, Idaho, awaiting their next adventure.

Want Keith to come speak at your church or in your home town? Send an invitation HERE

It is probably a good idea to be wary of doctrines. However, that doesn’t mean that Christianity should be some kind of free-for-all. The thing that should always be at the centre of one’s religious consciousness is a sense of one’s own sinfulness. The truth of Christianity can be seen in how seriously it takes the subject of sin. Of course, sinfulness is not a fashionable subject in the modern age, which is why Christianity is unpalatable to so many. But we ignore the subject at our own peril. If anything, the sheer depth of human sinfulness is perhaps more apparent in the modern age than it has ever been. The internet has shown what happens when people are able to express themselves without the restraint that would be required in a face-to-face encounter. We can now see just how thin the veneer of civilised behaviour is.

So the need for Christianity is greater now than it has ever been. But not the kind of Christianity that is designed to flatter us. No, we need a Christianity that holds up a mirror in which we can see our own depravity.

CO Fines

“It’s about learning to set ourselves free from toxic religion so we can
continue to experience and enjoy that freedom without taking any other
yoke upon ourselves.”

Yes and no. Yes, if you are speaking of earthly control, no if you are ignoring the yoke of Jesus, which he describes as easy and light. In my experience being yoked with Jesus is not quite a walk in the park, but certainly preferable by far to the alternatives, including wandering around yokeless. Can’t imagine trying to sort this out without God’s Spirit.

Gary

I do not discount the importance of our sinfulness, which, I agree, we need to face. I would suggest, however, that the centre of our religious consciousness should be the love of God as shown thought Jesus.

David M

Perhaps it was going too far to say that an awareness of sin should be at the centre. But it seems to me that there is a great danger in efforts to “deconstruct” Christianity. Those who are engaged in this enterprise often give the impression that they would like to make Christianity more “user friendly”. They apparently think that Christianity should be adapted to fit the “needs” of modern people. It’s as if Christianity were some sort of product which will sell or fail to sell depending on how skilfully its purveyors can read the market.

I believe that this is the wrong approach. If the market dictates that people should be made to feel good about themselves, the answer is to challenge that mentality, not to remove aspects of Christianity which might offend consumers.

Andris Stanga

It is my experience that the vast majority of those who have gone through the deconstruction experience go through periods of rejecting everything. To then face someone saying what you are suggesting here would do nothing but drive an even larger wedge between themselves and God. And that is something we need to remember here. People are not going through this process because life was all hunky dory and roses, but rather because they have been hurt, or have felt deceived when seeing the vast disconnect from the actual teachings of Jesus and the church fathers compared with what they were forced to endure in the modern man-made religious setting. An attitude, however lovingly intended, based on the words you gave here would make the wedge that already exists even bigger.
BUT – and this is a really important but, those going through deconstruction even find atheism attractive, or other spiritual paths… but they often just cannot escape Jesus. A few, a very small percent, are lost to the faith altogether (but I would not even write them off. Sometimes better to wait and see what the Lord will do. To often I have seen lovely results from the Lord tugging at their hearts – a work that would not have happened, or would have been destroyed, by fools rushing in…). But the vast majority, I would say 90 or more per cent, just cannot shake off Jesus. And sometimes it will have taken years, maybe even a decade, to have reached that realisation. But again, I would strongly suggest that sin and hellfire teaching put their way at this stage will just make things worse not better.
Now here is the thing, having found Jesus again, realising that there is a real love and real relationship going on there (or else they would not respond to the presence of Jesus) and also realising that there is a work of the Holy Spirit to lead and to guide here….
Then, and only then, with this realisation can they be open to begin to accept Jesus and know for themselves that Jesus accepts them. And they will move forward step by step, using God-given critical thinking, and only accepting anything if they can be convinced that it is true. And here’s the rub that I think you will hate. But hate it or not, you will need to face it or else face utter failure in approaching these people and utter rejection by them also. This is the fact that, for them, the scriptures are NOT any longer either inerrant nor infallible. They will accept what Jesus taught – that those who read scripture mostly understand nonsense (and teach nonsense as a result), and that scripture can only really be understood when read in the light and the revelation of the Holy spirit – who is the genuine source of truth for us. I HATE, absolutely hate, that many modern evangelicals and fundamentalists believe that they know better than Jesus, declaring the scriptures to be the ultimate source of truth. But Jesus said “I am the way (this means pathway and not doorway, by the way), the truth and the life…etc”, and he also said, “You shall no longer need any man to teach you for you will have the Comforter (understood to be the Holy Spirit) and when he comes he will lead you in to all truth.” Jesus never said that the final word of truth was the scriptures. This is a point that is very salient to all those who have deconstructed their faith – because often one of the triggers for the walking away is the self-contradictions in scripture magnified by perceived hypocrisy and bullying in church leadership.
So it have overwhelmingly been my experience that, for those who have gone through deconstruction, that they are more willing than other Christians to see their spiritual source of life as being wholly in Jesus, and therefore to place themselves in Him. And believe me, that in no way encourages them to go seek out another congregation to join. But that’s a whole other subject…
But what does the scriptures say about those in Christ?
Look, you can go on as much as you want about sin, but I see Jonathon Edwards as a sham, and Calvinism as heresy of great order. There, I said it. Calvin and Edwards slander the good name of God. Absolutely. And this is something else you will need to understand about those who have gone through deconstruction. They will be on this kind of page…
But in Christ… If you are in Christ then you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. period. So that talk of sin is again meaningless in this situation. In Christ you are a son or daughter basking in the love of the Father, and growing in his grace. This don’t need the permission of any congregation or any pastor, or any hellfire-men-as-worms believers….
It’s like the old saying goes. That the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. By why on earth would you remain only at the beginning? That fear is evidence of not moving into relationship. As John taught in his letter: he who fears has not been perfected in love.
Oh…. love. Now there’s the real key! And that is where those who have deconstructed nearly always move to. It’s a good place. More of the church and those who go there should try that place.